


howl

by crookedqueen



Series: howling ghosts, they reappear [bellamy finds her, every time] [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3777031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedqueen/pseuds/crookedqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“do you know why the wolves howl?" “no.” “sometimes the girls they run with run too far.” || clarke as a coven witch, bellamy as her lycan familiar</p>
            </blockquote>





	howl

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of my bellarke au series, which I also have graphics up for on tumblr.
> 
> [http://crooked-queen.tumblr.com/tagged/bellarke-au]

>   
>  _“do you know why the wolves howl?”_  
>  “no.”  
>  “sometimes the girls they run with run too far.”  
> 

There are two types of wolves who reside upon the earth.

There are the ones who run in packs, armies of blood-soaked fur, silver eyes, and midnight runs, loyal to their clans but solitary at heart. 

And then are are those who run with witches, become their familiars, howl along to their incantations at the moon, carry them home on their backs when their eyes go white and the magic runs dry, and fall in love. Blood red, gory, and obsessive.

Somehow, Bellamy becomes the second.

-

The first time he meets Clarke is along the river that runs straight through the center of the woods when she’s twelve and he’s on the cusp of seventeen. Between the witches and the wolves, the black water is an equator, an agreement. They’ll share the air but not the land, and that’s the difference between monsters and magic.

Bellamy’s been warned that the river rocks run deep with black spells and their blood. But the light is shifting and his fur is shedding and his throat is too dry to carry on.  

He’s disoriented, full human now when he makes it down to the river and laps at water in his cupped palms. By his favorite oak tree, in a hollow hole, are the torn pants he left there. As he pulls them on, he hears a whisper.

The young witch has silver hair, all staticky and tangled with waves. She’s collecting piles of seaweed from the water, the hem of her long black skirts dragging across the mud. Her face is soft and youthful, but her eyes seem to have aged quicker.

She doesn’t look up when she calls into the woods, “Who’s there?”

Bellamy splashes some water on his own face. “I should be asking you the same thing. You’re treading a fine line here, princess.”

She narrows her eyes at his bare feet in the water. “Yeah? Then so are you.” At this, she steps closer to his side of the land, the fabric of her dress billowing out into waves of endless black all around her, thin shoes slipping on the rocks, and he chuckles.

“ _Brave_ princess.”

Clarke furrows her brow and resumes her collection. “Not a princess, a supreme. At least, I will be one.” She says this with courage tinted in fear. It shows.

“I’m going to be an alpha,” Bellamy challenges.

Clarke raises a brow at this. “Not mine.”

-

Time passes, and here’s what they don’t talk about: Bellamy calls Clarke _princess_ not because he wants to torment her - that’s just a plus - but because she is regal and unforgiving, pretty like stone. She reminds him of storybook clippings and his mother’s voice, and for that, he’d follow her anywhere.

When he’s training to be an alpha, Clarke leaves clothes for him out in the woods, sown shirts and shorts gathered with twine, a snack of meat, and a map  she’s drawn of the woods, enchanted so that the trails illuminate on paper.

The riverbed is their secret place, where Clarke studies her spells, and Bellamy studies her, fascinated.

But they don’t talk about that either.

-

“I run alone,” Bellamy says one day after dawn has broken and a wolf in his pack has turned up dead, another battle he’s lost, more blood on his hands. His eyes are empty, he rips the seaweed in his fists.

Light dances against Clarke’s fingertips as she practices _lumos lummox_ , but she stops to look at him. “You don’t have to.”

She stands up. Eighteen and the new supreme, she’s wearing a confidence that Bellamy can’t think about for too long with such thin shorts on. Her black dress cuts a sharp V down her chest, hugs her curves, though frayed at the hem. Her eyes are black rimmed and dangerous, her hair appears white in the darkness, almost as pale as her skin.

Bellamy clenches his jaw. He’s all black ink tattoos and blistered scars, nothing Clarke is supposed to love.

To himself, he says, _Remember that_.

-

“The only way this will work is if we fight them together, Bellamy,” Clarke insists when the men in white coats flood the forests with cages, breaking broomsticks and slaughtering wolves. “They’re killing my people, your people, _our_ people for sport.”

“You know the deal, princess,” Bellamy says to her, jerking his head at the water.

“Don’t be a jackass. It’s just a river,” Clarke says, exasperated. “I’m not the enemy. You know that.”

Bellamy avoids her eyes because those are what always gets to him, all bright and shining, severe and earnest. “You’ve got to look out for your people, Clarke. I’ll look out for mine.”

He’s got his back turned to her, so he can’t see that she’s trudged across the water, soaked and chest heaving.

“ _You_ are my people, Bellamy.”

His resolve fades to nothing.

-

There are different types of covens: sea-based, desert driven, on the plains. Clarke is a modern witch, metal and iron embedded into tree houses that shoot up into the skies and collect the lightening she fills her veins with when she goes to war.

When Bellamy arrives with his pack in tow, a girl with an iron leg and silver hands who claims the name Raven barks orders at him like she’s his alpha. He rolls his eyes in disdain and tries to focus on Clarke.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” his sister growls at him with a knowing little smirk. Her eyes are yellow under the moon, her skin still rough and nails still clawed from changing. “My brother, a witch bitch’s familiar.”

Bellamy shrugs this off. “Clarke is an alpha too, in her own way.” _In ways that I’m not_. “We understand each other.”

“I saw you on the fields, boy. Lost,” says Indra, a wolf with a mask of scars and stiff skin. Her voice is gruff when she shoves past him. “Like you were watching her steps and not your own.”

Bellamy swallows. Later, he stands beside Clarke and yells battlecries to their army, two sharp-witted children of war, revolution in his bones and reflected in her eyes.

It just makes sense.

-

They fight.

They kill.

Their eyes meet sometime in the woods, bloody white fabric ripped in his teeth, her hands shaking and soiled with blood that is not her own. Her magic is strong; it kills more than just the other side, and Clarke refuses to look back.

Bellamy does it for her, but somehow it’s not enough.

-

After, she doesn’t move.

“It’s over, Clarke,” Bellamy says as witches tend to wolves with broken limbs, as wolves nudge unconscious bodies with their noses, help them up with ease. “How about you use one of those spells of yours to whip us up a drink?”

Beside them, two of the allies carry the body of Atom, a limp wolf, in their arms. His eyes are open. He doesn’t breathe.

Clarke blinks. “I’m not a supreme. I used my power for horrible things, I...” She trails off, closes her eyes.

Bellamy grabs her arm, pulls her farther into the woods, to their spot by the river, to the water-soaked rocks. He pulls her into the depths, until it nips at their chins, washes over their necks. He keeps his gaze even on hers as he hooks his thumbs into the shoulders of her dress and pulls down.

Clarke doesn’t react.

He turns her so that her back is to him and he can see the star tattoo on her spine, not quite ink but a glow of blue. He wants to touch it but thinks better of the idea. Instead, he begins to wash the blood and dirt out of her hair. At first, he’s not sure how to be gentle with her and gets it all wrong, tangling some of the strands and pulling a little too hard. He sees her flinch.

Behind her, Bellamy bites his lip, tries again.

This time, Clarke moans against his touch and tilts her head back. 

There’s a moment when she turns around, eyes feral and afraid, like she’s the wolf and there’s magic in him.

When he kisses her, they fall onto the rocks. He curls his fists into her hair and pins her hips to the gravel. She is under him and over him and a part of him, nails clawing half moons into his chest.

Her tears taste like sea-salt and broken spells.

-

And then this happens:

“I have to go, Bellamy. I have to leave.”

His eyes are wide, searching, fingers feeling for hands that won’t hold his own. His pride keeps his voice rough, but his eyes are glistening.

His half-smile is pathetic when he urges, “Come on, Clarke. That’s not an option.”

Clarke won’t look at him. “The things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen...If that’s what being a supreme is, I can’t do it.”

“It’s in your blood.”

Clarke shuts her eyes, wants to say, _So are you_. Instead, she murmurs, “I can’t face it.”

Bellamy lets out a breath. “Then I will.”

Clarke shakes her head softly, finally glances up. “I can’t let you do that, Bellamy. I fight my own battles, just like you do yours. I have to do this alone.” She leans up on her tiptoes to whisper against his unshaven cheek, “I was wrong. You’ll always be my alpha.”

He shuts his eyes, jaw clenched in pain. “You made me a promise, princess. Neither of us runs alone. Not anymore.”

But she’s already gone.

>   
> _“Then why does the wolf howl at the moon?”_  
>  “Because it’s the only thing of his that stays with her wherever she goes. He’s hoping she’ll listen. He’s hoping she’ll come home.”  
> 


End file.
